Yes folks you've seen the heading correctly, the Buckeyes are Champions again! Crown them now! We are the MAC Champions! There is no other word to describe the performance we saw on Saturday except pathetic. I would excuse this performance if this was the first game of the year, but we looked real good last week against Youngstown State. I am reluctantly given into the National Consensus that the Big 10 is nothing but a glorified version of the MAC. Living in Texas, I am constantly bombarded with our lack of performance in the Big games. How do we contribute the cause for this collapse?
Both the offensive and defensive lines didn't show up to play. In the last 2 National Championship games you can contribute our loses to poor perfomances by the OLine in particular. They looked slow and unprepared for each of these games. I somehow convinced myself that this year would be different. We would work in the offseason to improve speed and strength. It was like I awoke form a long sleep last Saturday and found myself thinking the same thing I thought for the last 2 January's... Our OLine didn't start to block it seemed until late in the 3rd quarter. With this kind of perfomance, I'd be inclined to let Shugarts, Brewster and Adams start getting their reps. These guys were highly recruited and our the future of our OLine. Anything has to be better then the uninspired play of these guys. In addition, we have lost how many defensive coordinators since Tressel took over? I've lost count, but we have had the same Offensive coordinator/ OLine coach since day 1, Jim Bollman. I have been uninspired by any of the OLine we've had in the Tressel era. Guys we are supposed to be playing cupcakes this time of year, not eating them.
The DLine didn't help any either. We weren't getting any penetration into the pocket and we didn't collapse the pocket. Instead there were many plays were Boo was able to get outside of the pocket and outrun our ends. Let's remember this guy was the backup QB for Ohio, not the starter. We have so many problems with a spread offense, it is scary. By the way, the team up North just went to a spread offense. We better get ready to see this the rest of the year because it seems to be a blueprint for victory against our Defense. There were also many mis-tackles across the board on the Defensive side of things. The play just looked unispired at times.
What us wrong with the running game (besides the obvious lack of effort from the OLine)? I thought prior to the beginning of the season that we were finally 4 deep at running back. We look like we are woefully one deep and he's got a sprained toe. These other RBs were all highly recruited and would allegedly be starters on any other team in the country. I realize Saine is still coming back from a hamstring pull (and he was moving tacklers), but the other backs were unimpressive. Maurice Wells still falls down whenever someone is close to touching him. The problem is he doesn't have any finesse to make up for it. Herron looks like he can move some piles, but I haven't seen too much more out of him in the moves department.
This brings us to Boeckman. He was supposed to be improved in the "let's not throw it deep every time department." I really saw a regression to the old "look and throw deep" attitude he had. If all of our receivers were covered on all those pass plays then we are in loads of trouble. The USC DBs are even better than our DBs. I really wish Boeckman would check down and get some throws to our TEs.
There was really one bright spot in this pathetic performance. Ray Small had a great game. He appears to finally getting out of Tressel's doghouse. Ted Ginn Sr said that coming out of high school he thought Ray Small was just as fast as his son. We haven't seen this yeat, but hopefully we will soon. We desperately need a deep ball threat. Robo and Hartline demonstrated again that they aren't barn burners.
I do have to question why none of the supposed team leaders have stepped up and taken responsibility for this loss. Tressel has said that this year he is leaving the motivation up to the seniors on the team. The only player to really step up and discuss his reaction is Hartline. He also described the perfomance as pathetic.
I am expecting another embarrassment for us on Saturday night. I am getting ready to assume the fetal position once again. The USC Defense will be the best defense we see all year. Based upon our performance last week you would have thought Ohio was the best D in the country. The USC offense will also be the best we see all year. I feel the only way for us to stand a chance is for the best 2 players on the field to play. We need both Beanie Wells and Terrelle Pryor to play. We need their explosiveness to beat SC. I just don't see it happening. I'll be watching and hoping for the best.
As an aside, I was watching the UF/UM game last Saturday night. UF had the game in the bag with 3 minutes to go. They were up by > 2 scores and Urban Meyer chose to try and score a touchdown and run up the score. He ended up kicking a field goal, bu the point is it was unnecessary to score again. I truly hope that what goes around comes around for Urban Meyer.
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